2005 ANNUAL REPORT Compiled by: Dr. Robert G. Deupree, Director Julee Adams, Secretary Institute for Computational Astrophysics Institute for Computational Astrophysics Annual Report 2005 The Institute for Computational Astrophysics (ICA) was formed by an act of the Saint Mary’s University Faculty Senate in December 2002 on the basis of a proposal generated by Drs. David Clarke and David Guenther. In July 2005, Dr. Terry Murphy, Vice President Academic and Research submitted the amended ICA Constitution to Senate, on behalf of the ICA. Senate unanimously passed the amended ICA Constitution in July, 2005. The Institute at date of submission consists of the following members: Director, Secretary, five full-time Faculty members, two Canada Research Chairs, and two Post Doctoral Fellows. In 2005, ICA Post Doctoral Research Associate Dr. Amanda Karakas left the ICA to begin a Post Doctoral position at McMaster University. Dr. Sasha Men’shchikov will be leaving for a position at the Service d’Astrophysique in France in January, 2006. In October, 2005, Dr. Joris Van Bever from Brussels, Belgium joined us as an ICA Post Doctoral Research Associate. The ICA will have two new post doctoral fellow arriving in 2006: Dr. Nathalie Toqué in March and Dr. Alex Razoumov in July, and will be submitting Dr. Rob Thacker for a Canada Research Chair position as Dr. Joseph Hahn will be returning to Texas as of July, 2006. EVENTS IN 2005 Dr. Deupree continues to serve as the CASCA representative on the CITA board, attending board meetings both in October and in the first week of 2006. He has been asked to serve on the Advisory Board of the Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics and will attend his first board meeting in early 2006. He continues to serve as the ACEnet Principal Investigator, and as such serves as a member on the National Initiatives Committee (NIC), an organization made up of the Principal Investigators (or designees) of the seven regional computing consortia such as ACEnet. The task of the NIC is to develop a CFI proposal for funding computational hardware for the consortia and for developing a model for the consortia to work together to provide computational needs on a national scale. The proposal is expected to be completed by the end of May, although it is expected that the governance issues will require more time. In addition, Dr. Deupree continues to serve as a referee for academic journals and as a member of the CFI College of Reviewers. The Department had a good recruiting year. The ICA participated by giving colloquia and meeting students from Atlantic Canada, fielding booths at undergraduate events, and soliciting undergraduates from fellow researchers. Among new students working with Faculty: Aaron Gillich being supervised by Bob Deupree; Chris Geroux and Joel Tanner being supervised by Dr. Deupree while completing Master’s with either Dr. Deupree or Dr. David Guenther. In 2005, Catherine Lovekin (student supervised by Dr. Deupree) completed her Master’s and is continuing in her Ph.D. research. Jonathan Ramsey (student supervised by Dr. David Clarke) is nearing completion of his Master’s. Both Catherine and Jonathan have past their comprehensive exams fulfilling the entry requirement for the Ph.D. program. The ICA has consistently played a major role in the initial formation of ACEnet (Atlantic Computational Excellence Network). ACEnet will be hosting HPCS 2006 (High Performance Computing Symposium), the 20 th International Computing Symposium on High Performance Computing Systems and Applications, in St. John’s, Newfoundland May 14 – 17 th , 2006, and Dr. Deupree, as Principal Investigator of ACEnet, has assumed the role of Conference Chair. Ms. Julee Adams, ICA Secretary, has the role of Project Manager. The ICA is sponsoring the Division of Dynamical Astronomy (DDA) of the American Astronomical Society conference with Dr. Joseph Hahn, ICA Canada Research Chair as head of the Local Organizing Committee. The DDA conference will be held on- campus June 25 – 29, 2006. The ICA is working with Dr. David Guenther in making preparations to host the MOST conference on-campus in 2006 (dates finalized: June 16 – 19, 2006). Included here are discussions on resources, summer students, visitors to the ICA, seminars presented by ICA members at other institutions, publications by ICA members, and brief statements of research progress for the ICA members. Resources The funding for the ACEnet project is expected to be finalized by the end of 2005. ACEnet is one of seven regional consortia to provide high quality computational capability to academic researchers. ACEnet serves the entirety of Atlantic Canada, and the ICA is expected to be a major user of the ACEnet resources. Construction has started on an expansion to the Science Building which will house much of the ACEnet infrastructure on the Saint Mary’s campus. The construction of the ACEnet space is expected to be complete by the end of August, 2006. Some of the infrastructure will be located in the basement of the McNally Building, and the construction of this part is nearly complete. Key components of the ACEnet architecture to be located at Saint Mary’s include a (128 node initially) Opteron cluster with Myranet interconnects, an Access Grid facility, and a data cave for high quality visualization of computed results (most particularly useful for three dimensional calculations). The cluster will be installed in the spring of 2006. Summer Students Faculty within the ICA employed summer students during 2005. They are as follows: Faculty Student Dr. Robert G. Deupree Patrick Rogers, Chris Geroux Dr. David Guenther Joel Tanner Dr. C. Ian Short James Sherar Dr. Joseph Hahn Yannick Poirier ICA Visitors January 31 st – April 30, 2005 Birgit Fuhrmeister Hamburg Observatory and University of Hamburg, Germany Seminars Presented Elsewhere by ICA Personnel November, 2005 University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria Understanding eta Boo Dr. David Guenther November 10, 2005 Dalhousie University Stellar Atmospheric Modelling and the problem of stellar composition Dr. Ian Short October 28, 2005 University of Western Ontario, London, ON Stellar Atmospheric Modelling and the problem of stellar composition” (with an introduction to the ICA) Dr. Ian Short April 28, 2005 Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Vancouver, BC Modeling Nonspherical Stars Dr. Robert G. Deupree April 27, 2005 BC.NET, Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre, Vancouver, BC Technology and Fulfilling the ACEnet Vision Dr. Robert G. Deupree April 25, 2005 University of British Columbia Modeling Nonspherical Stars Dr. Robert G. Deupree March 31, 2005 University of New Brunsiwick Modeling Stars Dr. Robert G. Deupree January 26, 2005 Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. Johns, NL Modeling Stars Dr. Robert G. Deupree January 6, 2005 McMaster University, Hamilton, ON Nucleosynthesis in AGB Stars Dr. Amanda Karakas Refereed Publications Jonathan Ramsey and David Clarke (SMUICA-05-101) Ramsey, J.P.; Clarke, D.A., "The Role of The Equation of State in Simulations of Astrophysical Fluids", ApJ submitted. Robert Deupree and Amanda Karakas (SMUICA-05-110) Deupree, R.G.; Karakas, A.I., "The Structure of Close Binaries in Two Dimensions", 2005ApJ…633..418D . David Guenther Walker, G.A.H., Kuschnig, R., Matthews, J.M., Cameron, C., Saio, H., Lee, U., Kambe, E., Masuda, S., Guenther, D. B., Moffat, A.F.J., Rucinski, S.M., Sasselov, D. and Weiss, W.W., “MOST Detects G-Modes in the Be Star HD 163868,” 2005ApJ…635L..77W. Lefevre, L., Marchenko, S.V., Moffat, A.F.J., Chene, A.N., Smith, S.R., St-Louis, N., Matthews, J.M., Kuschnig, R., Guenther, D.B., Poteet, C.A., Rucinski, S.M.,. Sasselov, D, Walker, G.A.H., and Weiss, W.W., “Oscillations in the Massive Wolf-Rayet Star WR123 with the MOST Satellite,” 2005ApJ…634L..109L. (SMUICA-05-118) Kallinger, Th.; Zwintz, K.; Guenther, D.B.; Pamyatnykh, A.A.; Weiss, W.W., "Pulsation of the K 2.5 giant star GSC 09137-03505?" 2005 A&A...433..267-273. (SMUICA-05-117) Randall, S.K.; Matthews, J.M.; Fontaine, G.; Rowe, J.; Kushnig, R.; Green, E.M.; Brassard, P.; Chayer, P.; Guenther, D.B.; Kuschnig, R.; Moffat, A.F.J.; Rucinski, S.M.; Sasselov, D.; Walker, G.A.H.; Weiss, W.W., "Detection of Long-Period Variations in the Subdwarf B start PG 0101+039 on the Basis of MOST Photometry", 2005ApJ…633..460R. (SMUICA-05-116) Guenther, D.B.; Kallinger, T.; Reegen, P.; Weiss, W.W.; Matthews, J.M.; Kuschnig, R.; Marchenko, S.; Moffat, A.F.J.; Rucinski, S.M.; Saselove, D.; Walker, G.A.H., "Stellar Model Analysis of the Oscillation Spectrum of ETA Bootis Obtained from MOST" 2005 ApJ, 635, 547. (SMUICA-05-115) Straka, C.W.; Demarque, P.; Guenther, D.B.; Li. L.& Robinson, F.J."Space and Ground Based Pulsation Data of ETA Bootis Explained with Stellar Models Including Turbulence", 2006ApJ…636..1078S. (SMUICA-05-112) Robinson, F.J.; Demarque, P.; Guenther, D.B.; Kim, Y.C.; Chan, K.L., "Simulating the outer layers of Procyon A: a comparison with the Sun", MNRAS - 362, 1031. (SMUICA-05-103) Walker, G.A.H.; Kushing, R.; Matthews, J.M.; Reegen, P.; Kallinger, T.; Kambe, E.; Saio, H.; Harmanec, P.; Guenther, D.B.; Marchenko, S.; Moffat, A.F.J.; Ruchinski, S.M.; Sasselov, D.; Weiss, W.W.; Bohlender, D.A.; Bozic, H.; Hashimoto, O.; Koubsky, P.; Mann, R.; Ruzdjak, D.; Skoda, P.; Slecht, M.; Sudar, D.; Wolf, M.; Yang, S., "The Radial and Nonradial Pulsations of the Be Star zeta Ophiuchi from MOST Satellite Photometry and Ground-based Spectroscopy", 2005 ApJ...623, L145-148 . (SMUICA-05-102) Straka, C.W.; Demarque, P.; Guenther, D.B., "An Improved Treatment and Constraints from Procyon A", 2005 ApJ...629..1075. Joseph Hahn (SMUICA-05-113) Hahn, J. and Malhotra, R., "Neptune's Migration into a Stirred-Up Kuiper Belt: A Detailed Comparison of Simulations to Observations", 2005, AJ Vol.